At night, when she turned up the air conditioner before going to bed, they all swayed gently in a confused rhythm.
My favourite dress of all was the one with all those Champagne labels on it. No label appeared more than once and there must've been twenty different champagne houses represented - each label more obscure than the next. It was almost as if a frustrated sommelier had been driven out of the industry and now made clothes adorned with wines she wished she was selling instead.
When I knew her, she had just come into that age when conviction begins to replace hope. That unaware transformation we all go through as we get closer to the end of our 20's. She spoke with intention about her estimations and with strength about her vagaries. She repeated herself to herself, in order to make sure she remembered where to re-find her last thought.
I didn't need to believe her, so I didn't.
But I could easily see how someone who needed so badly to believe would find their way through her directions and into her bathtub.
She lived down by St Kilda beach in that part that is actually probably more so Elwood. Her apartment was one of eight, in a stucco clad, double-storey block. Two sets of four apartments running alongside a central parking lot. I remember the curve at the top of her entrance-way, the beige walls of her bathroom and the emerald green jacket her sister had left behind, that was draped over the single chair at her kitchen table.
I remember her smell. A faint combination of toffee'd brûlée and rye bread. She had a dog. I remember him too. She named him after Brett Whiteley and when she called after him in the park, it sounded like she was shouting "White-y! White-y" at random Caucasians.
I don't remember what sort of dog it was. Or what colour.
I also don't remember no longer seeing her. I think we just hung out for a few weeks and then we didn't and then, some time later, I must've gotten older.
One morning - probably towards the end of those few weeks - we took mushrooms and stepped out into the dawn. The sky was filled with rays of glowing pink light and we headed for the marina a few blocks from her house. We wandered through the parking lot and reached the bike path snaking along the water's edge.
We stood there silently for a bit, staring out into the frigid waters of the bay - a choppy mess of purple and silver crashing in and under itself - and then she told me about boyfriend back in England.
They had met there the year before and then her visa expired and then she had to come back home. She got a life reestablished in Melbourne and he was supposed to follow. But six months later, he still hadn't booked a flight and she no longer believed he was coming.
She said that hardest part of letting go, was knowing that she never looked back. She cut freely because she cut cleanly and once she decided to move on from waiting for him, she would change her phone number and delete his details. And they would never speak again. Not even a check in driven by nostalgia or drunken, midnight curiosity.
And there would be no second chance. No opportunities for him to clean up the mess he made. No remorse or regret. Just the clean break and the forward momentum and the Pursuit of the New. She would move on in the way the seasons turn - with predictable finality.
And that finality scared her.
It meant she had no room for doubt.
The way she explained it - as we stood shoulder to shoulder, looking back at the shining Melbourne skyline - it was like stepping out over a cliff's edge and already knowing what the impact would feel like before the fall had even started. And whilst that felt freeing and liberating and, in a weird way, reassuring, it also meant she had to be completely certain when she called the expiration date on any of her relationships.
Sometimes, when it feels like the dawn don't rescue me no more, I like to go back to that early morning in my mind and try to imagine what it must feel like to step out from the cliff's edge. Most of the time, it's too hard to tell the difference between running away and running towards. And when the air is rushing through your hair, as your tumble your way through gravity, it's hard to know if the impact is gonna feel better or worse than what you imagined as you stepped off the edge.
